


the value of destiny comes to nothing

by pinuspinea



Series: Swan Lake remixes [2]
Category: Swan Lake & Related Fandoms, Лебединое озеро - Чайковский | Swan Lake - Tchaikovsky
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:00:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25180519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinuspinea/pseuds/pinuspinea
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a spell powerful enough to turn a girl into a swan. Stuck between two worlds, the lake and its shores, she would live for so many years until her she finally broke her heart and the spell.Snapshots of Odette.
Relationships: Odette & Odile, Odette & Swan Maidens, Odette/Prints Siegfried | Prince Siegfried, Odette/Von Rothbart, Odile & Von Rothbart
Series: Swan Lake remixes [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824241
Comments: 17
Kudos: 20





	the value of destiny comes to nothing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Her_Madjesty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Her_Madjesty/gifts), [perennial](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennial/gifts), [Pure_Anon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pure_Anon/gifts).



Sometimes, when the thoughts of impending adulthood are too difficult to manage, Odette disappears to the lake. Her mother and her father have warned her about wandering alone, but surely there is no danger by the water? The beasts do not come so near their village, and there is nothing frightening in the forest other than the shadows.

So, Odette walks and wanders and learns the shores of the lake, and one day she finds a garden. What a strange garden it is! There are no carrots nor are there any turnips, but there are odd herbs and flowers she barely recognises. Odette studies them, and then she settles onto a cool stone bench and sits with her thoughts for a moment.

She is no longer a girl, but not yet a woman. Sometimes she wonders what her life will bring, but mostly she just lets the waves of the lake wash away her thoughts as she sits in silence.

* * *

More and more often she slips away from her father's house, tired of their talk of marriage and future. She comes to her own secret garden and sits on the stone bench that is familiar by now, and on occasion, a big black bird flies above her head. At first it frightened her, but by now, she is used to him. The bird never attacks her head, not like some of the more brash and rude creatures that have tried to steal food from their open kitchen window.

There she sits and looks at the lake in calm and peace when something changes. She flinches and quickly hurries to her feet as a man in dark noble clothes sits down on the bench. He looks up at her.

"There's no reason to be afraid, Odette," he says in a deep, melodic voice. "There is room enough for the both of us."

The man is strange, his words carrying a hint of an accent. Odette studies him seriously for a long moment before, with great hesitation, she sits back down. The man smiles at her. There is something strange in his smile, in the way he looks at her, but Odette supposes he simply must be a strange one to have found the garden as well.

She never questions how he knows her name, never questions the way he looks at her, the way he leans a little closer and breathes in, never questions how she suddenly speaks aloud all the little things she has wondered about on the shores of this lake. She tells him of strange dreams, of the way she sees the lake, of all those quiet moments of reverent completeness she feels when she looks at the still water in the light of the moon. He lets her speak, rarely says anything in between.

She comes to find out his name only after weeks and weeks. He calls himself von Rothbart. When she hesitantly asks him about his fine clothes, he gently brushes her off and says that those do not matter. Eventually, her questions reveal that he is a count. For Odette, who is a simple miller's daughter, it all seems very strange. Von Rothbart speaks to her as if she was his equal, as if she could understand much more than her brothers could. He does not dismiss her questions about the world, but instead talks with her about astronomy, of stories of ancient times, of sciences and mystical things.

In the garden, she comes to be free, and soon her days are blurred by the brightness of these moments with him.

* * *

Autumn arrives and with it more work. Often, Odette is too tired to slip away during the night after long days working at the mill and dodging uncomfortable conversations.

Her mother worries about her and tries to tell her that she must marry soon for she will otherwise lose her options. Her father talks in short words about the boys and the young men in their village and other villages nearby, and her brothers discuss their friends that do not yet have brides of their own.

It is a relief to leave it all behind and go to the garden. Odette sits on the bench for a long time in silence, thinking that this is one of those nights when von Rothbart will not come there, when suddenly, there is movement in the corner of her eye. He sits down next to her and grasps her hands.

"Be my wife, and I shall give you everything you could ever hope for," he declares and creates a ring out of nothing. Odette rips her hands away and scrambles for freedom. She stares at the man in fear and in disbelief, wishing this was just a mistake.

He follows her until the shores of the lake. He looks at her seriously.

Odette thinks about her home, thinks about escaping from him, and she glances at the water. She is a strong swimmer. She would make it across the lake, she knows she could.

"Odette, do not do this," he warns her, but she has already made up her mind. She thinks he will not follow her into the water, thinks she can simply dive into the embrace of that cool expanse and forget how he has ruined everything good about the garden, thinks this is her way out.

But he dives after her, grasps her ankle, and suddenly, there is more of that dark magic of his. Her form shifts, her body no longer smooth in the water. She bounces onto the surface and he drags her onto the shore.

She spreads her wings and looks at them in horror, and he changes her destiny with a declaration of eternal imprisonment.

* * *

Moments in the reeds become her respites during her days. Odette hides away there from the people she used to be amongst, frightened what they might do to a lone swan. In the reeds, the world fades away until there is only the wind in her feathers, the sun on her beak, and the gentle waves in her webbed feet.

Dusk often settles before she has enough bravery to leave the nest she has made for herself. Sometimes, she paddles over to the middle of the lake and graces her neck and looks at her reflection in the surface of the ever-moving water.

Sometimes, she spreads her wings wide and takes flight. The air is so different than anything she has ever known, but flying is exhausting and she quickly learns to spare her energy.

One time, she is on the shore. The man she thought she knew appears so quickly that she has no time to escape, but then he touches her and everything changes. The wings she spread in an attempt to frighten him off turn into hands. She grows back into her human form and her legs give out under her.

He is there, so near, mumbling words of encouragement as she sobs while wrapping her arms around herself.

"I will change you each night if that is what you want," he murmurs. She wishes she could believe him.

Her legs shake when he takes her hand and guides her a little way off the shores of her lake. There is stillness in the forest, unnatural stillness she has not noticed before, and her heart aches. She does not feel cold, does not feel pain, does not even need to eat, and now she has her legs and her hands again.

"I have to go to my mother," she murmurs, half delirious, and he stops her.

"And what will you tell her, Odette?" von Rothbart asks harshly. "Only my magic gives you this form, and even that is not permanent. I can only hold the spell for so long, and I must be near you for it."

She looks at him and wonders if her heart can even break more than it already has, yet each night after that she searches for him, desperate to cling onto the hope that she will keep her form one morning and not lose her hands the moment sun's first rays land on her skin. Each night, she searches for him, and he comes to her, weaves his magic on her form, and then they sit quietly on the shores of the lake.

There is nothing to say anymore, so Odette keeps her words to herself and wishes her destiny was something other than this.

* * *

Her silences grow longer. Her days are spent alone, so often in the reeds, but slowly, she dares to grace the surface of the lake even in sunlight. She never goes near the village or even glances at the mill, and she never hears of the stories the villagers tell of the lone swan that appeared on the lake the same day that the miller's daughter disappeared.

Sometimes, when the moon is bright on the surface of the water and dims the stars all around it, Odette will study her hands. It is becoming harder and harder to remember what they looked like before, but she knows these are not the hands she used to have. Gone are the rough spots from work. Now they are soft and delicate like a noblewoman's, so expressive and enchanting.

He likes to sit nearby and watch as she studies her hands, and during those moments he never comments upon any of it.

The hem of her dress has been torn for a long time already when she notices it looks a little like feathers. That makes her pause, makes her study her form in more detail. She has noticed the decorations on her dress and in her hair, beads of shiny stones that add with all the tears she cries. She rushes to the shore and looks at her reflection in the still surface. His image appears next to her.

She brings her hands up to her face and the reflection does the same. They stare at each other, and Odette wonders if she always looked so thin, so delicate, so decorated in jewels with a crown.

She looks like a queen, a stranger in clothes she thought were familiar, clothes that make her look like a swan even when she is a human, and she weeps into his chest.

* * *

The years are marked by her sorrows and losses. She watches as her father and her mother die, then her brothers, watches as the village falls into ruin and then is lost to the plants. The beasts take over the forest again, and Odette haunts the shores of her lake.

Sometimes, when he turns her back into a human, she'll stare at her hands wondering if she still exists in someone else's memory other than his, if she even has a tomb stone on a lonely and abandoned cemetery somewhere in the forest, if she is simply a ghost of days gone by.

She is lonely, so horribly lonely.

Then, one day, he changes everything. Odette sees him on the shore and sees only him until she is nearby, and then she looks in horror at the other swans. He is smiling as he touches a wing that turns into a hand. The swan turns into a maiden, and so do the others. Finally, he touches her. She looks at him and the maidens.

Odette has never seen her own transformation, but something in this seems different. There is something familiar in their faces, something familiar and eerie in the shape of the features. Five swan maidens who look the same at first glance yet still slightly different. Odette's wide eyes study them and learn to see the differences of their faces.

She wonders who these were and looks at von Rothbart with a horrifying thought curling up in her stomach.

"I made them for you, my dear," he tells her with pride in his voice, "your very own swan maidens to keep you company."

The swan maidens stand still and let her approach. They gently touch Odette's arms and welcome her into their midst, and she looks at them all.

They are maidens yet they are still swans. But are they really either of those things? Is there anything real in them except the magic he has used to shape them out of?

Von Rothbart takes hold of her hand. She watches in detachment as he kisses the thin skin on the back of her hand and then she closes her eyes. He has given an immeasurable gift to her, and she does not want to lose them even though she knows they are not real.

She kisses his cheek and then steps back, but his hand remains and caresses her hand.

"Do you like them?" he asks even though he already knows the answer.

She still thanks him.

* * *

The silences grow longer and longer, but somehow, they bother her less now. He brings her more swan maidens to ease her loneliness, and they start forming a flock. There is comfort in their presence, how she is no longer alone, how she can seek comfort in other beings than just in him.

They build nests together. Eventually, he manages to give the others the ability to shift forms at will, but not for her, but that is fine. Sometimes, she likes it when her new friends stroke her feathers and hum half-remembered melodies of songs she must have heard at some point in the time before she inhabited the lake.

Together, they build nests and weave reeds and grasses into delicate patterns. He watches it curiously from afar, never intruding upon their work. They hold onto each other, always touching somewhere, and their presence is almost enough for Odette to be fooled into thinking that they are something more than apparitions of his magic.

But there are moments when she cannot forget that, moments when she feels lonely even among them all, and then she seeks him out. She still needs him for the others are not real.

And so they come together time after time, her away from her flock, him always knowing which one she is even without looking. He comes to her in the forest, on the shores, sometimes wading knee-deep into the water, but never pulling her to the garden nor the house that looms behind it. She thanks him for new companions with a kiss on his cheek and wonders if there ever could be something more than this heartache and loneliness that still gnaws inside her ribcage.

* * *

Then there is the moonlit night late in summer when the trees are just starting to turn yellow and red. The other birds are leaving the lake and its surrounding forest, but not the swans, never the swans. They fly on the wide-open sky towards faraway lands and freedom. They do not care for rules or laws, simply following their instinct.

Odette watches them and longs to fly yet she knows she would long for her hands even high in the air. He finds her deep in those thoughts.

He leans over her and studies her with his dark eyes. He seems to sense that her spirit is restless, seems to know the ways her thoughts keep running through her head. He brushes her face gently and she leans into his touch. Tonight, she needs something real, something that cannot be taken away by a cruel twist of fate, and she needs to feel real and loved, and he is there, offering it to her.

He takes off her crown.

She looks up at him. His eyes are softer now, less like dark pools one could easily drown in, and he bends his head and kisses her, and she kisses him because she wants to know what it feels like.

He is overwhelming. His hands roam her body and make her feel like a human after all this time spent as a swan. He kisses each of her fingers and her neck and her face, worships her body like it was an altar to some unknown god. She looks at him and is not afraid anymore. She can see the loneliness in him as well as he caresses her with shaky hands and learns the wonders of her body with reverent worship.

The sand is still warm after the summer, though the nights are getting colder. He caresses her as her breath flows in freely again. She wonders if this is how it ends, if this is enough to end her days as a swan. She hopes it isn't. If this is the end, then she would have been stubborn and stupid for nothing, lost everything in a moment of weakness.

"I used to think I'd never get used to seeing the light of day," she murmurs. He kisses her fingers, her delicate and too-long fingers as if wishing they would never leave his touch. She looks at him, wondering if she'll stay like this now.

He speaks words that talk of the spell yet never mention it directly. He reminds her of what could be, what he has always wanted, and she looks over to the lake and wishes he understood.

Her refusal is almost as quiet as a whisper. Odette's afraid what the consequences will be this time, but now, he neither creates another spell nor does he rage. Instead, he kisses her skin again and again, kisses her everywhere he can see, holds her.

He seems to sense that he will have her for only this night, and they both wait for the morning to arrive with bated breath.

His eyes are locked onto her as she closes hers and swallows in fear, waiting for the first ray of light to grace her skin. She feels the familiar magic stemming from beneath her skin, feels the beginning of the transformation, and she greets it with joy.

She does not look at him as she leaves the shore they spent the night together on and swims towards her maidens.

* * *

As a swan, everything her human mind worries about is less clear and less important. She can glide on the surface of the waves and float in the water and there is no need to wonder about what her decision will change. There is simply the gentle rocking underneath her and the water that is almost like a second home to her.

The water no longer supports her transformed form and she sinks into the depths. For a moment, panic burns in her lungs, but then familiar hands wrap around her and pull her up. Some of her maidens swim in their human forms, some in their swan forms, but together, they pull her safely onto the shore where he has appeared. He wraps her in his coat and squeezes her shoulders, and she looks first at him and then at her hands.

The breeze is cool enough to make her shiver, or perhaps it is her nervousness. Her hands look like they have been for the past years, still soft and delicate and too pale.

"Magic sometimes senses intent," he tells her quietly and moves his hands to weave another spell. Her hair and clothes and skin dry quickly, leaving her with nothing to prove that she nearly drowned in her own lake. "I did say that you would not see a single day as a human, didn't I?"

Her stomach twists and turns. Is this what marriage means to him, having her come to him on the shores of the lake, sharing her nights with him? She looks at her hands in fear and wishes her swan maidens would have let her sink if this is what her destiny is now supposed to be like.

Again, his fingers weave magic. This time, something inside Odette responds to his touch. He bends his neck and studies her carefully, touches only a bare spot on her wrist, nothing more. He does not try to take anything, letting her make the decision to give more just like he has let her have before.

"It seems you will have this form during the nights even when I do not come to you."

He seems upset at that thought as he touches her cheek. Odette tries to avoid looking in his direction. Her eyes search for her swan maidens. They are always nearby, always ready to protect her from him, their creator, even though they know the price. She meets their eyes, and they confirm her what she has thought herself. She nods and then slips his coat off her shoulders. He accepts it back mutely.

Odette studies the lake for a moment and von Rothbart studies her. The maidens seem to sense what she is thinking about, and after a moment of hesitation, they leave the two alone on the shore yet remaining nearby in the reeds and amongst the trees.

She settles next to him. He winds his arm tightly around her tiny waist and she presses her head against his shoulder and they walk and walk, so close yet so far, an image that is nothing more than an illusion. There is comfort in the feeling of him against her body, a comfort she now is much more familiar with, yet the fear stops her from surrendering completely to him.

She wonders if this will be the first night of an eternity of similar nights, her transforming alone and then pretending with him that nothing has changed even though everything is different now.

* * *

Even though everything is now different, she still comes to the shore before the sun sets. Usually, she transforms in front of him. Sometimes, they only meet for a short moment, and sometimes they spend the whole night together.

It is so easy to find comfort in him. He gives her trinkets and little gifts that make her smile. He weaves pearls into her hair and decorates her skin with elaborate jewellery, and he always smiles with his eyes when she comes to him of her own volition.

One day she notices how she no longer feels lonely. Even during the days, he sometimes steps out of his house and walks over to his garden and studies the swans from a distance. So far away it is impossible to tell for certain what he is looking at, but Odette knows his eyes always find her form.

Every night she spends with him she feels more at peace with her decisions, more confident that this will change nothing in the end. Each time he kisses her is just as overpowering and strange and seductive as that first time, and each stroke of his hands on her skin simply reminds her that she is a human and not a swan.

Oh, how she wishes she could simply love him and end it all in that manner. Instead, they separate each morning, her leaving with her swan maidens, him watching her go. There are no goodbyes, just one final, lingering kiss that he seems reluctant to end.

Once, only once does he attempt to hold her when the morning arrives. She remains a human when still locked in his embrace, and his arms are too strong. Odette stills in his hold and closes her eyes.

He holds onto her for such a long time and then he lets her go, and the moment his fingers leave her skin, she becomes a swan.

It takes many nights for her to forgive him, but in the end, she does. She always forgives him in the end.

* * *

So many years have passed by that people have forgotten that the forest is haunted, or even if they remember it, they no longer think that true. More often, hunters enter the woods, and one day, they finally reach the lake.

The little swans are stretching their wings high up on the sky above the lake when Odette notices the hunting party. She screeches out a warning for the little swans and flocks to the sky. She is faster now than she used to be, flying against time. The little swans dive down towards the lake, and for a moment she thinks they will all be safe when the arrow pierces her wing.

Falling is not something she has ever thought about before. She has always instinctively known that her wings would carry her, but now there is a moment of weightlessness until the world catches onto her. The winds pick up and push against her twisting and plummeting form, slowing her descent, but she still hits the water hard.

Her swan maidens pull her onto the shore, and then she feels familiar hands stroking her feathers. There is no warning as magic twists her insides and she cries out in pain. For the first time ever, the transformation hurts. He cradles her in his arms and looks at her swan maidens in rage.

"Kill him," he spits out. "Kill whoever hurt your queen."

She feels feverish and sick as he carries her prone form to his house. For a moment, she twists in his arms and tries to stop him, but he does not listen to her begging. Instead, he rests her down on what must be his bed. Von Rothbart studies the arrow stuck in her arm carefully, and then she knows no more.

She wakes up not knowing where she is, simply knowing she is hurting. Her voice is frail when she calls to him, and before she has finished the word, he is already there.

She feels something completely new, something she has never felt before. It takes a long moment to separate the feelings into thoughts. She looks at his face as he caresses her softly and presses a finger against her lips.

He is not only afraid for her, but there is something much deeper and darker in his thoughts. He wants her more than she has ever wanted for anything. There is a burning need inside him to have her, to own her soul and her body, to hold her forever with him. His eyes are so dark and so filled with all these thoughts, so filled with his need for her, and she feels fear surge inside of herself.

"Hush, Odette," he whispers. "As long as you sleep in my bed, you will remain in that form. You need to heal."

She searches his eyes for what he means with his words, and her heart lurches uncomfortably. He thinks they are as good as married as long as she stays there.

And he says that exact thought and she is more afraid than she has ever been.

* * *

During those days of rest and healing, he never leaves her side. If he is not in the room with her, he leaves the door open so that he can hear if she calls for him.

He changes her bandages and weaves his magic on her. She sees neither daylight nor moonlight for he keeps the windows covered. He confesses that it is easier that way to keep her as human so that she can heal in peace, so that the transformation won't break her arm all over again.

There are moments of comfortable silence where they simply are. He will study magic by the fire and she will doze off for a moment or two, or then he will settle next to her on the bed. It is wide, but he always scoots close to her, always touching her yet never asking for anything. She lets him wrap his arm around her waist and she sleeps next to his warmth.

There are also conversations that almost remind her of those ones they had when she was still just a girl. They talk of sciences and the wonders of the world and he tells her of all the strange things he has seen, and she wonders why he would give up such a life to stay here by the lake. He reads to her from books that seem so old and delicate, and with great patience, he teaches her to read. She still prefers listening to his voice while nestled in the crook of his arm.

But it cannot and will not last forever. Eventually, her arm is healed. The bone stops aching and the skin is clear of even a scar. He makes sure of that. He adds to her jewels by creating a band of sparkling stones that he slips onto her arm where the arrow pierced her.

"It's time for me to return to the lake," she whispers. He closes his eyes, swallows his pride and his anger, and then he finally lets her free.

They return to the lake together, to the swan maidens that have gathered on the shore. Odette looks at them and sees the tarnished feathers and knows they have done something wicked, and her stomach churns at the thought. One of the maidens give von Rothbart a crown much larger than Odette's delicate one, and he studies it in distain.

Afterwards, Odette cannot remember what they spoke of on the beach. He flings some king's crown into the depths and wraps her in his arms. He murmurs something into her hair and promises that no one will ever hurt the swans again.

She transforms and takes to the lake. The swans all see as he searches for the bodies of the hunting party and rips them apart. He rages and mutilates and swears revenge on the king and his family, and Odette fears him.

* * *

Yet there is no trace of his anger when she returns to him.

* * *

She only notices something is changed when, during her nightly transformation, there is an odd twitching in her middle. She pauses and blinks and wonders what it might mean, and he is immediately by her side, asking what is wrong.

Odette doesn't know any better, so she simply pays no mind to it until she has to.

It takes a while for her to put all the clues together, and when she does, she starts hiding from him. She's afraid of what will happen when he finds out about the life growing inside her, what he will do, and so she finds new hiding places in the forest and gets further and further away from the lake.

She should not have spent two nights in the same place, because that is when he finds her. Odette weeps bitter tears as she curls around her growing stomach and wishes he won't be too upset. He wraps himself all over her and feels the secret she has been trying to keep from him.

He chastises her and turns her around and, for the first time, witnesses the roundness of her stomach underneath her too elaborate dress. His magic makes her flinch, and he stares deep into her eyes.

"Our daughter is quite well," he says, "although I do wish you would have told me yourself. It's not exactly safe to transform when expecting a child, neither for you nor for her."

 _A daughter_ , she thinks, _our daughter_ , and he drags her into the house.

He locks all the windows and doors and waits for the morning. She does not transform.

The rooms are too tall in his house. There are always shadows lurking in the corners no matter how many candles are lit. Odette barely dares to leave the walls, feeling too exposed elsewhere.

She lurks like a prisoner in his house. Von Rothbart is always in hearing range if not in the room with her. He gives beautiful gifts to his prisoner and takes joy in preparing a nursery for their daughter. Odette lets the man have that.

Sometimes, she feels like she is suffocating inside these rooms. She misses the morning sun and quiet moments in the reeds and the company of the swan maidens. She misses the freedom of flying, of spreading her wings and feeling only wind underneath her. She misses diving into the cool waters and the fishes she would chase.

In the night, he opens all doors and windows and steps outside with her. She cradles her growing stomach and he cradles her as they walk slowly along the shores, ever so slowly as the weight makes her clumsy. His eyes hold a smile more often now.

He loves her and she loves their child, but not him.

* * *

She gives birth during the night. Their daughter arrives into the world during that quiet moment when midnight passes into the earliest hints of morning. He is happier than Odette has ever seen him before as he studies their daughter. Pride colours every movement as he washes the new-born's skin and swaddles her in the finest of fabrics.

He brings their daughter to her. How strange it is to see the child she has loved so dearly, how strange to study the features that are still so squished. Their daughter's hair is dark like his, and when she opens her eyes for a wide yawn, the colour of her irises is just like von Rothbart's. Still there is something familiar in her, something Odette has seen in her own reflection on the surface of the lake and the faded and dotted mirrors in his house.

"Odile", she whispers the name for the first time out loud, testing it. He looks surprised yet delighted as he nods.

"Odile," he agrees, and then his magic starts fading away all the aches and hurts of childbirth.

His dark voice is soft when he sings to Odile in the other room. Odette listens to it for a moment and looks out the window at the lightening sky and feels longing in her heart, longing so strong that even love for Odile cannot win it. She gets up quietly and spies him rocking their daughter into sleep in the nursery, and she slips away into the night.

The sun comes. She transforms for the first time in months before he even realises she has left the house, and when he does, he finds her floating on the water, keeping an eye on his house.

He stands there in his garden, their daughter pressed against his chest, and the swan queen stares back at him.

Eventually, he returns to the house.

* * *

Odette watches as their daughter grows first into a slightly larger swaddle of blankets, then into a child that eagerly comes to the garden ahead of her father and babbles to a swan queen even before sun has set and the swan queen turned into a human. Odette cherishes their daughter and kisses her and holds her close.

Von Rothbart keeps their family well protected. His magic flows in Odile's veins, and soon their daughter learns to change her form just like her father and her mother. Odette flinches when she first sees it, when Odile proudly presents it to her, but she puts on a brave smile and eagerly coos at their daughter's midnight-black feathers and ruby-red eyes.

During the days, sometimes Odile will join her mother on the lake. Odette teaches her to swim and to fly, teaches her so many things her father could never teach. During those afternoons, von Rothbart sits on the shores and watches over them, always keeping guard.

The swan maidens accept the princess easily enough. They protect her as viciously as she protects them, and slowly, things start to change. Odette is not sorry when the swan maidens with blackened feathers form a court around her daughter. Instead, she is mostly relieved when she is no longer faced with their deeds each day.

Once Odile is old enough and has enough magic to protect the flock, he sometimes leaves for an hour or two. When he returns and Odile has been covered in blankets and kissed goodnight, Odette will pull him to the shores of the lake. She'll wonder what he does when he goes away, but she never dares to ask.

It is during one of those moments on the shore when he kisses her again. His heart is still adamant on her, yet Odette hesitates to answer the kiss this time. He looks at her and studies her eyes.

"What is it, Odette?" he asks. She gathers her last drops of bravery before answering him.

"I can't have another child," she whispers and looks into his eyes with desperation. "Please, Wolfgang."

He caresses her and looks like he doesn't understand. Odette bites her lip.

"It's too hard. I can't watch another child from afar. I feel like I've betrayed Odile."

"You haven't," he states firmly. Odette blinks away her tears and he kisses her softly. "She does not know of anything else. She is happy like this."

He does not state that he would be happier if she would have his ring in her finger, but that is not necessary. They both know it.

He presses his hand onto her stomach. Odette breathes harshly when cold seeps into her core. He murmurs soft words and then presses his hand against her waist.

"You won't have another child until the first spell is broken," he tells her. She presses against him, desperate to feel warm again.

He kisses and caresses her until she no longer feels like freezing inside.

* * *

Not much changes after that. Odette still comes to the garden and helps raise their daughter as well as she knows, and he still disappears sometimes. Odile grows into her features and her gifts, and too soon, she is almost the age Odette was when von Rothbart asked her to marry him. Odile is sharp as a knife and wants nothing less than the world, but under her mother's coaching, she also has gentleness and softness in her.

Odette watches as their daughter grows older and wonders whether she'll ever meet a man that changes her whole life for worse and for better.

One day, Odile is old enough to want to see the world with her own eyes. Odette flies her to the nearest settlement and watches from afar as her daughter transforms, always with an aching and worrying heart. She stays there for only a moment longer, and then she flies back home.

She does not see the silver crossbow aimed at her torso. She is too worried for Odile.

Just before sunset, she lands on the shore. The familiar transformation feels almost good and she rubs her arms. She raises her eyes and sees ahead of her a boy, a man, and fear grasps at her. He rushes closer to her and he draws her into his arms.

"No, you have to leave," she whispers, but he holds onto her.

Something in the embrace feels so different to von Rothbart, something in it makes hope spring in her heart that perhaps her destiny is not to remain a swan, that perhaps this prince could break his spell for once and for all.

She stills into his embrace and feels something new stirring in her heart, a love that she has hoped to feel for another man.

The prince listens to her and caresses her face. He is so good and kind and his smile is so warm. Odette hesitantly tells him of a curse that can only be broken by true love, and she hopes that the prince will be enough, hopes that she can be just a human, hopes she could find happiness with him.

Her heart aches and longs for the boy with a soft smile, yet something in Odette wishes that it was von Rothbart she loved.

The morning comes like it has always come. She transforms in front of his eyes, and then, a black mass of feathers attacks the prince and chases him away. Odette rushes to be among her swan maidens, but that has never been enough to hide her from his anger.

He sees her and knows her heart's newest wish, and he is angrier than she has ever seen him before.

"What is it about him that is so much more appealing than myself?" he spits. "His youth, his naivety, his title?"

Odette wishes she knew.

* * *

She's never felt more ashamed in her life than when von Rothbart explains to their daughter his plan for fooling the prince. Odile's eyes glance in Odette's direction in question, but the mother simply looks away and wishes she could go back to last sunset and push the prince into the lake or do something that would have made him not awaken her hopes and dreams.

When the sun sets, von Rothbart sits Odette down in front of a mirror and warns her that he will know if her eyes leave it, and so she watches as they fly above the forest until they reach the prince's castle.

They enter the ball. Odile is stunning, a creature far rarer than those princesses that the prince is supposed to be looking at. Von Rothbart meets Odette's eye in every reflective surface. There is no hiding his pride as their daughter dances and charms everyone, even the prince.

Siegfried swears eternal love to Odile. She laughs. Von Rothbart mocks the prince for not recognising what was right in front of him.

Odette cries bitter tears in front of the mirror when they return. Odile settles into a hug. Odette wishes she could tell her daughter of men that will hunt her until there is nowhere to fly, wishes her daughter would not take this as lightly as she does, but Odile is still too young and entranced by her very first ball.

"You needed to see it for what it was," he murmurs into Odette's ear as he holds her in the cage of his arms. "He fell in love with a dream, not what you truly are."

Odette cries more and wishes she still had dreams.

* * *

This is the first time she sees the swan maidens for what they truly are. Prince Siegfried is lost among them all, looking at their faces and seeing Odette everywhere. She supposes that is what von Rothbart thought of when creating the swan maidens: her. Each of his creations reflects her face, and the prince is lost among them all just like Odette is lost.

Without her crown and her jewels there is nothing to separate her from the swan maidens. Odette steps among the flock and wishes the prince could pinpoint her out of them all just like von Rothbart can, wishes he knew her well enough, wishes he could see the truth when it was staring him straight in the eye. But Odette already knows that is not the end her story will have. The prince's eyes pass over her and he turns away from her.

Odette can only stare as von Rothbart changes Odile's colouring, nothing else. Their daughter looks so much like her mother, yet she is nothing like Odette. The prince thinks he has now found the swan queen. There are no words to warn the prince. Odette knows there's nothing left to say to save him. He already sealed his fate when he tried to take what von Rothbart had already claimed so many years before him.

Odile smiles a sharp smile as the swans run around the two. The feathers create a storm of magic. There is a change in Odile's smile, and then the swan maidens grab the prince and drag him into the lake. Von Rothbart's spell is broken. Odile comes to her mother, and Odette watches as the prince sinks into a watery grave.

Odette realises there is no other destiny for her than this. There is no value in thinking of another future when this one's worth is nothing more than heartbreak and sorrow while she still fights against it. There never will be anything else for her than the lake and its shores and the man that has been waiting for her for centuries.

He slips his hand into hers.

"Do you see now?" he whispers and brings her knuckles to his mouth. The kiss is almost as light as a feather. "Do you understand now?"

Odette thinks she does. She now sees how foolish she has been. There never was any sort of battle between the two of them. She would not have lost if she gave in, she would have won. She only lost so much because she was a fool.

"Please", she murmurs and doesn't know what she begs him for. "Please."

He has always had the ring, but now it rests on her finger, and he smiles in triumph.

* * *

His house comes to life. There are now servants and guests and dinner parties, chattering and laughter and every enjoyment life can have. Odile gains a wide circle of friends within a few meetings, but they can never compare to the court she keeps at the lake.

Odile is the new swan queen. She rules over the lake with grace and cunning, and the black swan maidens make a striking image. They keep close to their daughter, an entourage of beautiful girls to strangers that do not know any better. Odette sometimes looks at them and thinks of the time she was as innocent as her daughter, when she still thought she could change her future.

Her new life is as much of a prison as it is a reprieve. Odette wears the finest dresses and lets her husband decorate in the prettiest jewels, and she listens to his tales of faraway lands while knowing she will never leave this lake, this house, this man. He showers her in his love and happiness, and he kisses and caresses her and gives her so many gifts that she sometimes feels like she is suffocating.

They are safe there, safe from the cruelties of the world and its horrible temptations. There are no princes to hunt swans nor are there dangers von Rothbart and Odile cannot best with their magic. Soon Odile will leave them for a life of her own, but for now, they are still together. For now, their daughter is still safe from heartache and love that will simply hurt.

On moonlit nights when Odette most misses what she thought she had, she will seek the shores of the lake and stand there and stare at the water, and she will wonder, always wonder, if Siegfried would have died had the lake become her grave first, and then she'll wonder what would have happened had she drowned when she was just a girl, if von Rothbart simply would have found someone else to be his swan queen.

She wonders and wonders and never finds an answer, and eventually, the tides wash away her thoughts until there is only the silence of night and his arm wrapping around her waist, and she wonders how soon he will guess the secret hiding underneath his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Turns out all you need to do to get me to plan, write, and edit about 8k of fic in less than a week is to leave a few comments with a little (a lot) of kindess in them. Who would have known?


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